A few people from Manchester No Borders supported a demonstration by the new Student Action for Refugees (STAR) group at Manchester University on Friday. A large banner and some 15 people with flyers informed students of their 'Let Them Work' campaign.
As STAR wrote:
The protest will launch the Manchester branch of STAR’s national campaign ‘Let Them Work’, to give asylum seekers the right to work during the asylum application process. The campaign is being supported by the Refugee Council and the TUC. Currently the UK’s draconian asylum system prohibits those applying for refugee status the right to work in the UK, leaving many feeling depressed and demoralised. … It is estimated that several thousand failed asylum seekers live in Manchester, deprived of the right to work, to get basic public services, and live a life of dignity.
We fully support the demand for the Right to Work as it would fundamentally change the living conditions of thousands of people seeking asylum. But we need to remember that asking more rights from the state can at best be a limited strategy.
Just as the folks from No One Is Illegal, we believe that no forms of immigration control can be ‘fair’ or ‘just’. At the centre of all migration management systems lies the desire to distinguish and divide between ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ legislation, ‘genuine’ and ‘bogus’ asylum seekers, the ‘legal’ and the ‘illegal’, the ‘citizen’ and the ‘non-citizen’, ‘refugees’ and ‘economic migrants’, those with rights and those without…
The Right to Work will almost inevitably lead to new groups of ‘rightless’ people and to new forms of exclusion and exploitation. New divisions will appear between ‘categories’ of asylum seekers and other migrants.
Similar points are raised in a new pamphlet on ‘amnesties’ just published by NOII.
Therefore we have to connect the demands for practical improvements with a clear rejection of all divisions between citizens and non-citizens and all forms of immigration control. We cannot stop at the Right to Work but must declare: Freedom of Movement for All - No One Is Illegal!
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Manchester No Borders invites STAR and other local campaigns and activists to a planning meeting for the upcoming protest against Manchester's immigration detention centre, Pennine House. The meeting is this Wednesday, March 4th, at the Friends Meeting House at 7pm. See our website for details.
The Pennine House protest will be held on Saturday, March 21st, to coincide with a demonstration at Yarlswood detention centre in Bedfordshire, called by the London No Borders group.
The protest will launch the Manchester branch of STAR’s national campaign ‘Let Them Work’, to give asylum seekers the right to work during the asylum application process. The campaign is being supported by the Refugee Council and the TUC. Currently the UK’s draconian asylum system prohibits those applying for refugee status the right to work in the UK, leaving many feeling depressed and demoralised. … It is estimated that several thousand failed asylum seekers live in Manchester, deprived of the right to work, to get basic public services, and live a life of dignity.
We fully support the demand for the Right to Work as it would fundamentally change the living conditions of thousands of people seeking asylum. But we need to remember that asking more rights from the state can at best be a limited strategy.
Just as the folks from No One Is Illegal, we believe that no forms of immigration control can be ‘fair’ or ‘just’. At the centre of all migration management systems lies the desire to distinguish and divide between ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ legislation, ‘genuine’ and ‘bogus’ asylum seekers, the ‘legal’ and the ‘illegal’, the ‘citizen’ and the ‘non-citizen’, ‘refugees’ and ‘economic migrants’, those with rights and those without…
The Right to Work will almost inevitably lead to new groups of ‘rightless’ people and to new forms of exclusion and exploitation. New divisions will appear between ‘categories’ of asylum seekers and other migrants.
Similar points are raised in a new pamphlet on ‘amnesties’ just published by NOII.
Therefore we have to connect the demands for practical improvements with a clear rejection of all divisions between citizens and non-citizens and all forms of immigration control. We cannot stop at the Right to Work but must declare: Freedom of Movement for All - No One Is Illegal!
------------------
Manchester No Borders invites STAR and other local campaigns and activists to a planning meeting for the upcoming protest against Manchester's immigration detention centre, Pennine House. The meeting is this Wednesday, March 4th, at the Friends Meeting House at 7pm. See our website for details.
The Pennine House protest will be held on Saturday, March 21st, to coincide with a demonstration at Yarlswood detention centre in Bedfordshire, called by the London No Borders group.
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Hide the following 14 comments
Failed asylum seekers
01.03.2009 16:08
Pete
arrogance astounds
01.03.2009 19:16
one world
The right to comment
02.03.2009 15:35
Why have a comments function if you delete comments?
Send failed asylum seekers home as soon as their asylum request has been refused. They won't need the right to work in the UK if they are packed off home will they?
Pete
Pete enlight yourself
02.03.2009 18:17
noborderer
Managing Transition
03.03.2009 14:19
"Freedom of Movement for All" though a worthy aim is dangerous rhetoric today while there are national disparities in social welfare and political oppression.
People in the UK have fought for social rights, like the national minimum wage, the right to strike, basic healthcare and so on. Uncontrolled mass immigration, such as the many Eastern European workers, undercuts those advances by undercutting existing pay structures. Many foriegn workers earn far higher rates here than they would at home so would move here doing more difficult, unpleasant or more skilled jobs for less money, effectively making the local workforce redundant.
"At the centre of all migration management systems lies the desire to distinguish and divide between ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ legislation"
Yes - and your point is?
China has adopted capitalist economics without serious political reform so what would happen if everyone in China was allowed to move here today? The economic equalisation of our relatively small population with theirs would not noticabally increase their living standards but the political and social equalisation would lower our standard of life to their current levels. Meanwhile, the super-rich will remain super-rich.
The truth is transition to an anarchist future must be slow and managed and global. At the moment even the poorest of us in the UK live in comparitively privileged, comparitively progressive society and to a great degree that has been caused by historically standing up to our leaders, a tradition that I have been told by my Chinese friends is not the case there.
I think your aims of equality for genuine refugees and asylum seekers is just, but tarnished by simplistic sloganeering that can only act as a driving force for fascism.
Peasant
@ previous comment
04.03.2009 01:13
noborderer2
Refugees does not equal foriegn workers
04.03.2009 02:43
Local but accomodating
I'm not a racist.
04.03.2009 14:51
Pete
Pragmatically I live in a capitalist nation
04.03.2009 15:14
I would want to live in a society without a police force but if the police disbanded today there would be gangsters running the streets. I think it would take at least another five years of organising and public education about what anarchy really means before that would be a bloodless step, and even then I think the police should be phased out.
I want to live in a society without prisons but I don't think freeing every prisoner overnight would be sensible.
I don't like living in a society where so many are homeless but I am not going to improve that significantly by giving them my home and living rough. Only so many people can live in one council house.
Similarly if our borders were removed tommorow this country would be swamped by the poor, disenfranchised mass of humanity who are suffering from genuine economic violence. Their poverty should be dealt with urgently but the best way to do that isn't to invite them all here.
I've spoken to a few refugees and asked them how they like it and they say 'We hate it, there is no sun and people are unkind, we want to go home but we can't'. Anyone who doesn't want to live here should be allowed to stay!
I fully recognise the rights of non-economic refugees, but then so does the current government in theory, it is just the government don't recognise it in practice. Noborders do a great job in pointing that out, but the far-right are recruiting on fears of mass immigration and unqualified slogans that support mass immigration are a gift to them.
'What do we want?
No Borders!
When do we want it?
After a sensible period of preparation, organisation and education!'
Crap chant admittedly but then sensible policies rarely fit onto T Shirts or badges.
Peasant
I can't believe people here are arguing for borders
04.03.2009 22:04
Indymedia is about a non-hierarchical society, that is why articles that go against that are removed. Indymedia doesn't claim to be open to all, it is specifically as an alternative to the hierarchical media.
Imagine if there were borders around each county of the UK, patrolled by armed guards. We are headed that way anyway, but the idea is ludicrous. How is borders around countries any different?
We are all human, why should where you are born, an accident of birth, affect your life so much? It's like going back to the old days of feudalism where the aristocracy had it all just because of their bloodline.
Why should an "economic refugee" be any less than any other sort of refugee? Seeing how our ancestors went raping and pillaging round the world, I think it's a bit rich for us to complain. If people want to move here to try to find a better life, I say good on 'em.
If that means our standard of living goes down as other countries rise up, tough shit. We can't hold on to our ill-gotten privileges forever. That is just greedy and selfish.
anon
@ Pete and Peasant
05.03.2009 09:23
Support for the border regime is support to the imperialist state. The idea that no borders are encouraging fascism is both offensive and complete bollocks.
Anyone who considers themselves an anarchist, socialist, communist or libertarian is by definition against borders, its a basic tenant of all progressive schools of thought.
If the Trolls could take their National Socialism away from Indymedia that would be good.
on of no borders
Organise an army of the wretched of the earth!
05.03.2009 11:05
EXACTLY.
That's the fucking idea!
you think a bunch of student occupiers, anti-war protesters and ccological activists are gonna overthrow the ruling class?
We need to break the floodgates holding back the bitter harvest of imperialism!
No Borders Class Warrior
@ pete and peasant
05.03.2009 11:09
but no borders doesn't even argue for that! we argue for a dismantelling of the underlying causes behind borders - statism, nationalism, racism, capitalism - the ideologies that have trapped you! that's not a practical policy suggestion - and it isn;t meant to be. this is a criticism of modern society and a call to arms for resistance - against the kind of nationalist bullshit that you write!
noborderer2
Please, @peasant
10.03.2009 15:13
"that's not a practical policy suggestion - and it isn;t meant to be".
I know, but slogans can be misrepresented as practical policy suggestions.
"this is a criticism of modern society and a call to arms for resistance - against the kind of nationalist bullshit that you write!""
I don't think it is nationalist bullshit to suggest the Palestinian nation needs a state with borders before it is safe to dissolve that state.
Peasant